The proposed joint European-USA mission – called AIDA (asteroid impact and deflection assessment) – may sound like something from a Hollywood blockbuster but experts are deadly serious.

AFP PHOTO/HANDOUT

SCI-FI: NASA want to smash a spacecraft into an asteroid, just like the movie Armageddon

“ If an asteroid threatens our planet one day, we will have the capability of changing its trajectory”

Ian Carnelli, AIM project head at the European Space Agency (ESA)

The idea would be to launch a NASA spacecraft at an asteroid called Didymos eight millions miles from Earth and crash into it at more than 13,000mph.

A second European craft – called AIM – would film the impact and see if the rock was moved off course.

"The goal is to test the technology so that if an asteroid threatens our planet one day, we will have the capability of changing its trajectory," Ian Carnelli, AIM project head at the European Space Agency (ESA), told AFP.

ESA

ASTEROID: Boffins are targeting Didymos, which is eight million miles from Earth

The mission suffered a major setback, however, when European space ministers gathered in Switzerland in December last year for a regular policy and budget meeting, and rejected funding for AIM.

The ESA had sought £210m for the project.

ESA director general Jan Woerner says he remains hopeful and stressed "the mission was not cancelled".

2016: Amazing pictures taken from a year in space

2016 was a year full of new stunning imagery taken from Space

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NASA

Aug. 19, 2016: Expedition 48 Commander Jeff Williams (shown here) and Flight Engineer Kate Rubins of NASA successfully installed the first of two international docking adapters during a five hour and 58-minute spacewalk